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It’s Krystal clear, Detroit’s future isn’t being decided at today’s City Council meeting

Will the Detroit City Council fire Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon today? Probably not. How important is this in the grand scheme of things? Um ...

Crittendon catapulted into the spotlight when she filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of a consent agreement between the city and the state. The city and the state can’t have contracts, she claimed, because the state owes the city money. And according to the new charter, the city can’t enter into a contract with an entity that is in default to it.

The new charter also, by some readings, empowered the corporation counsel to enforce compliance with the charter, even without approval from the mayor or the City Council.

The lawsuit was summarily dismissed, with Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette rejecting outright the idea that a city’s corporation counsel wouldn’t have to have a contract in order to file a lawsuit.

Bing asked Crittendon to step down, she demurred, And now he’s asking the council to remove her, which it can only do with a supermajority of six.

That means — if you’re not an avid council watcher — given public statements by key council members, that a request to remove Crittendon is destined to fail.

Once again, is any of this important?

It’s debatable. Some people say that Crittendon has acted against the best interests of her primary client, the city of Detroit, and that it’s impossible for the city to move forward with a lawyer it can’t trust.

Others say eh, not so much. More than one attorney has told me that if Crittendon were fired, she’d have a viable whistleblower lawsuit. There’s also some ambiguity regarding exactly what signals Detroit Mayor Dave Bing was sending Crittendon early in the consent agreement lawsuit.

One thing is clear: The hoopla surrounding Crittendon is, at this point, a distraction. And it’s also far from over. Which is too bad, because the city’s financial advisory board is finally meeting, a program manager has finally been selected and the June 30 deadline after which Bing can impose union contracts (and the July 1 start of the new city budget) is rapidly approaching.

These decisions — how city departments accommodate the cuts in the new budget, how unions react to the imposition of contracts with steep concessions — are what ultimately will determine the functionality of Detroit city government and the quality of life for Detroiters.

Honest discussions about these choices are happening in city government and in the community … but all eyes are on the Crittendon sideshow.